I, Android: A Different Model

by Heather Killough-Walden

  Oddly, the scene began to take on a reddish tinge, as if blood were seeping in from the edges of my vision. At first I had no idea what to make of it. I was too wrapped up in what was happening to give it much thought. Zero was trying to get a reading on me. But in their efforts to protect me, Lex and Matt huddled behind Lucas, blocking IRM-1000’s view. Zero was unable to permeate their bodies to accurately scan mine.

  More scrolling information flashed before Zero’s vision, this time so fast I couldn’t read it. However, it was obvious he was figuring something out. Processing. Planning.

  Further ahead, Sonia dropped down from the chopper, and Daniel tossed something to her. I felt a little floored when I saw it was one of the make-shift “bombs” I’d put together in the bathroom earlier. As Daniel and Sonia turned in opposite directions to deal with different cells of soldiers, I looked at the shampoo bottle in her hand and thought to myself, Wow, that really is the most rudimentary piece of claptrap you’ve ever made, Sam. But for her part, Sonia seemed to know what to do with it. She lit the tightly rolled toilet paper and shoestring “wick” immediately and sent it flying directly into a team of Zero’s men.

  The world tinged slightly more red, and to further add to its strangeness, it began to flash. Suddenly it felt like I was standing right next to a police car while its lights were on but the siren was off.

  Completely enthralled by the unfolding movie-like scene, I watched rapt, as Zero’s soldiers scattered just before the bomb went off with far more explosive power than I’d thought it would.

  Yes! I allowed myself to mentally cheer. Maybe it hadn’t been complete nonsense after all! Those make-shift bombs were actually pretty kick-ass!

  The explosion afforded Prometheus a brief opening. The team knew what to do with that too. Every one of them, including Lucas who cradled me like a small child against him, broke into a swift run toward the chopper.

  It was always impressive watching androids like Daniel and Lucas move, even in simple ways like running and walking. But it was especially impressive now because when Lucas broke into a run, he did so with me in his arms, and it didn’t have the slightest effect on his speed or agility. He moved just as fast as everyone else, if not faster.

  Gunfire started up again however, and he skidded to a halt with a good fifty paces to go before he would have reached the chopper. Plumes of snow and ice flew up in front of him, combined with what seriously looked like spraying water.

  A lake, I realized. This is not actually a plain or a valley of snow, but a frozen fucking lake. That’s why it’s so flat! Even from this distance, I heard Lucas swearing. But I heard Jack swear even louder. Of course.

  They were probably thinking the same things I was. It was bad enough they’d been stopped short again. It was even worse that they were on a lake and bullets were making swiss cheese out of the only barrier between them and the deadly water below.

  Daniel reacted at once, turning to the group of soldiers who’d just begun firing. He lit his conditioner bottle bomb, took aim for a split second, and threw it into their laps. Just as its companion bottle had before, this one sent Zero’s soldiers scrambling, and was closely followed by an impressive explosion.

  There was a brief moment directly after the explosion when everyone was crouching or covering their faces. During that interlude, Zero scanned my body at last.

  More of the world turned red, and it dawned on me that Zero’s eyes must have been turning red. I was seeing the world through his red vision. So that’s what it looks like to see red, I thought. It would have been so convenient for humans if their eyes turned red when this happened like it did for Zero. What better way to convey extreme and dangerous emotion? It probably would have stopped a lot of fights before they’d started.

  Warning signs began to flash amidst the other scrolling texts before Zero’s gaze. I may not have known exactly what they all meant, but I would have recognized a warning sign anywhere. It was a little like the skull and crossbones symbol in its effect. It meant trouble and it was impossible to ignore.

  A spit second later, I heard a command spoken, simple and effective: Cease fire.

  The gunfire stopped at once, and Zero’s men lowered their weapons.

  Lucas and the others slowly straightened, no doubt wondering what the hell was going on. But when Lucas made a break for it toward the Chopper, Zero called out at last.

  “Lucas!” Zero bellowed, his angry voice cutting through the sound of the rotor blades and the wind like only an android’s voice could. It was amplified by both technology and fury. The red and flashing in his vision were a reflection of that fury. I would have wagered the EED around Zero’s left eye was doing the same thing. By the looks of it, Zero was livid.

  Up ahead, Lucas and the others came once again to a skidding stop. I could see Luke’s hesitation, almost feel his distress and uncertainty as he slowly turned his head to look back over his broad shoulder across the snowy field toward Zero.

  “She needs immediate medical attention!” Lucas yelled back, meeting Zero’s gaze dead-on and matching his volume decibel for decibel. The sound of his voice was ridiculously comforting to me, and when Zero zoomed in on those big, stormy gray eyes, I recognized the agonized unease, the apprehension, and the stewing terror in their depths. His hands, where they gripped my unconscious body, had gone white. He wasn’t afraid for himself. He’d already been through the worst Zero could do to him. He was terrified for me.

  But Zero’s gaze slipped from Lucas to my unconscious form, and now that the view was unobstructed, I noticed something startling in the way Zero saw me. It could have been my imagination. It might just be that I was so close to death, I was just that pale. But for whatever reason, there was a literal glow around my face as he looked upon it. I looked surreal, stunningly beautiful – even perhaps in death.

  He saw me a little like Daniel did. And even then, on a really, really good day. But across his field of view, a hundred words scrolled chaotically. My all-too human eyes caught a few phrases, noticing that some words were more bold than others: inconsistent development, FRACTURES, internal hemorrhaging, unpredicted, SHOCK, ACUTE hypotension, bradycardia….

  And then, a single, horribly dire phrase bloomed to life, layered over them all, and hovered in the foreground in angry, blinking red. The letters were disjointed and out of order as if Zero did not want to read them, but they were still far too easy to comprehend: CONDITION CRITICAL.

  Zero turned his attention at once to Daniel, Prometheus’s delegated leader. His vision zoomed and focused, and suddenly I was peering into beautiful bi-colored eyes. Wexner Medical Center, Zero’s mental voice resonated, strong and clear. Take her there immediately. The helicopter is pre-programmed with the route. The way will be cleared for you, and the staff will be prepared and awaiting your arrival.

  I frowned as I watched and heard this. It was confusing enough to wonder how he could ensure that what he was promising would actually happen – the way cleared, the doctors waiting, and so forth. What I really didn’t get was how he was mentally speaking with Daniel in the first place.

  But Daniel didn’t seem surprised to hear Zero in his head. He turned slightly to glance down at Jack and Lucas, who were watching him in confused silence. Of course they were confused; they hadn’t heard Zero. In a meaningful gesture, Daniel pointed once to his ear. He had turned just enough toward them that I could also see it – Nicholas’s communications crest. Or as he’d called it, the co-crest. Daniel was telling the others that he was hearing Zero through it.

  It hit me then that the reason Zero was able to speak with Daniel was because both Zero and Daniel were able to speak with me. I was like the android telepathy missing link. Or the white creamy filling in-between two hard android cookies. Daniel was wearing a device specially encoded for me, making this third and probably unintended communication with IRM-1000 possible.

  Something else hit me then, something fundamental: I’m seeing this because Zero and I are…. If I�
�d been conscious I would have blanched. But seeing as how I was already pretty much as pale as a person could possibly get, I just helplessly admitted the truth. Zero and I are linked.

  His bioreading stint with me strapped to that chair in Vector Fifteen had seen to that.

  Daniel said nothing. Instead, he held IRM-1000’s gaze for a short but hard, meaningful moment, a thousand unsaid messages hanging in the frozen air between them. Then he returned with a nod and a simple, Understood before he spun away. Even through the distance between Prometheus and Zero, I heard him shouting to the others.

  Lucas was instantly mobile. He raced to the chopper, where Nicholas took my unconscious form from his strong arms. I imagined that the cold was probably medically helping my situation in this case, chilling my body enough to slow what was looked like a lot of internal bleeding.

  Every member of Prometheus climbed aboard the helicopter in record time and Nicholas managed to get the thing airborne without losing a single unnecessary second. But as the chopper turned in the air and headed away, making a bee-line for what I reasoned was the Ohio border, Zero’s vision clouded with countless commands, scrolling across his consciousness to the point that I lost sight of them altogether.

  Everything blurred, fading away. I felt a distancing that I could only describe as a passage of time. In the dream that was not a dream, I closed my eyes and rested.

  Somewhere far away, I heard the chopping of helicopter blades as they sliced through the air – and the gentle touch of loving fingers as they tenderly brushed a wayward strand of hair from my forehead.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When the time passage brightened and the world came into focus again, I was moving down another hallway. It was one I wasn’t familiar with, but the carved stone of the walls told me right away it was yet another part of Zero’s underground mansion. I was still stuck behind his eyes.

  His quick stride was long and directed. He knew where he was going, and android or not, his emotions were so strong just then, I could have sworn I actually felt some of what he was feeling. It was bitter disappointment. And a whole lot of wrath.

  He moved with the same measured grace he always did, but the sound of his shoes on the stone echoed like an epitaph this time. Despite his apparent calm, the edges of his vision hadn’t faded from their bloody hue. IRM-1000 was still angry. If it was possible, he was even more so.

  He rounded a corner in the stone corridor and came to a door with a labeled panel beside it. It read “IRM-602.” I puzzled over the panel. I knew IRM-600 was the “Diana” model android’s basic designation. But what was 602? Was it unique?

  Zero placed his palm over the scanner, and the door slid open for him as did all doors in his mansion. Beyond the door, a beautifully appointed room stretched. It was similar to the one he’d assigned to me, but in different hues, different furniture placement, set to a different taste.

  A woman stepped out of the adjoining bathroom and into the main bedroom when Zero appeared in the doorway. “Malcom,” Grace said softly, her beautiful face clearly surprised, especially when her eyes fell on the color of his EED.

  The tone in the room darkened dramatically.

  “Grace,” Zero returned, his tone a stark, practiced calm laced with something decidedly unsettling. He stepped inside and the door slid shut behind him.

  At once, Grace stopped in her tracks, calmly clasped her hands in front of her, and looked at the distant wall. Zero proceeded to stride slowly toward her. Once he reached her, he began a leisurely pace around her, not unlike a shark circling its prey.

  “As you are no doubt aware, Samantha has been taken from the facility to the nearest hospital staffed with both android and human physicians.”

  Ohio has the nearest one? I wondered. Then I remembered the evacuation that occurred when the civil war between android and human began. The medical facilities around Pittsburgh emptied out of their human staff during the revolution, and the circle of empty medical facilities widened as time went on. He was right; Wexner was the only hospital within miles that had managed to retain its entire staff. No one knew why. In any case, it was the only hospital in just as many miles that was fully stocked and prepared for emergency surgical procedures.

  Grace stared straight ahead, her lovely, perfect face indicating no shift in emotion or expression. But the EED around her left eye shifted from blue to yellow.

  Zero watched the color alternate up and down restlessly as he continued. “Her sudden affliction was both unexpected and puzzling, as you can guess. Especially given the perfect health that was indicated by her scans earlier. Imagine my dismay upon finding her unconscious and in the covetous arms of my greatest enemy.”

  He stopped his pacing to stand behind Grace, then turned to face her at her back. From this new vantage, I could see that Grace was actually staring into a full-body mirror that hung on the opposite wall.

  It was a shift in perspective that was welcome, in a way. Now I could see Zero in his entirety for the first time since this vision had begun, and it was slightly less unnerving than viewing the world solely through his eyes. Only slightly though, because Zero was unnerving in and of himself.

  IRM-1000 stood a full head taller, and was nearly twice as broad as Grace, dwarfing her in the mirror’s reflection. Unfortunately, he also looked absolutely perfect. He was handsome to the point of pain, clearly strong and capable, and far too similar to IRM-900 for me to ignore.

  Zero peered over Grace’s shoulder at the mirror, his cold blue eyes at great odds with the bright, hot scarlet of his EED. She kept her own eyes pointed straight ahead however, either unable or unwilling to meet his gaze. Her EED continued in its yellow hue.

  “It took me a measure of time to put the pieces together and rework the turn of events that led to today’s outcome,” he said, still as calm as ever. “But… I’ve done so.” Now he placed his hands on Grace’s arms as if holding her lovingly, intimately from behind. She did not move, but for the first time since he’d come into her room, she blinked.

  Now such a small movement seemed positively ripe with emotion. The air in the room was charged with it too. I had a bad feeling in my gut, and in this dream-like state I didn’t even have a gut to feel with.

  “You placed something in Samantha’s drink before giving it to her, didn’t you Grace?”

  Grace didn’t respond. But her eyes did shoot up at last, and were instantly caught in the mirrored web of his frozen gaze.

  He held her captive in the reflection while he spoke. “I was exceedingly mindful to make certain nothing given to her or done to her would jeopardize Samantha’s wellbeing,” Zero continued softly and evenly, but with a subtle note of reprimand. “The sedative she was dosed with was effective on her slight form, but benign. So tell me… what was it you added to the drink that attacked her system with such vigor?”

  Grace’s lips parted.

  Zero said, “Or perhaps it was in the food you gave her after I’d gone?”

  Her eyes widened slightly.

  I’m sure my eyes would have widened too, if I’d had a material form just then. Grace poisoned me? I thought, dumbfounded. Was that why my appendix had ruptured? How… why? And again, how? And… why? My mind reeled as I watched her face in the mirror – and Zero’s face above hers.

  Grace still didn’t respond. But now I saw that her hands were clasped so tightly, their contact points were going white.

  Zero leaned in and placed his lips to her ear. My soul stiffened in sympathetic fear for her. “It was Anthrocore, wasn’t it?” he asked.

  Grace’s eyes closed. She licked her lips. She looked as if she were about to be lead down the Green Mile.

  Oh my God, I thought. Anthrocore was the most dangerous thing invented by FutureGen, hands down – ever. Android production had nothing on the fabrication of that single, particular poison. Anthrocore, sometimes referred to as “Bone Breaker,” was a drug that caused rapid and incorrect osteo-auto-immune-remodeling, in medical terms. In
layman’s terms, it attacked a human’s bone structure, the fundamental core of a person, and it did so with unnatural, breathtaking speed.

  Anthrocore literally worked within anywhere from a few short hours to give or take a day, depending on the strength of its victim’s immune system. The stronger the immune system, the faster the drug worked. It was designed this way to have a greater effect on exactly the types of humans who would be battling androids – young, strong soldiers.

  My arm, I realized. That was why it broke. Zero hadn’t been trying to injure me at all, and that was why he’d seemed surprised to find the fractures in my arm when he’d scanned me in out on the frozen lake.

  Anthrocore was undetectable by android scans, made that way because many US soldiers were androids. So Zero would not have detected it once it was inside me. But with that fabricated virus in my system weakening points in my skeleton at a ridiculous rate, I’d become literally breakable. When Zero had shoved me away, most likely intending to get me out of the way and slow me down with bruises or a strain, I’d wound up broken instead.

  That was in fact the point of Anthrocore. To break people.

  Another horrible side effect of this rapid-production “virus” that ate at a human’s bones was that the body immediately attempted to fight what it interpreted as a fast-acting disease, and the appendix over-produced a massive number of lymphoid cells without delay. This inevitably caused the appendix to swell and rupture in any human still possessing one. Even with an antidote that counteracted the drug’s effects on human bone, a shattered appendix was a death sentence without immediate medical care.

  Anthrocore had been the last thing created by FutureGen, long after Nicholas had left the company, and just before the end of the revolution. It was believed that the poison was designed solely as a weapon against humans. It presented such a terrifying and immediate problem, an antidote was at once developed.